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The contemporary art market still appears to be contracting judging from the Frieze week auctions which go on view in London this weekend. At the equivalent auctions last October, 884 lots were crammed into the week with a minimum estimate of £185 million. This year there are 746 lots (down 15.6 per cent) with a minimum estimate of £131.5 million (down 29.2 per cent). The statistics follow the trend this year after London’s contemporary art auction results fell by 36 per cent in February, and by 49 per cent in June.

A sense of foreboding has been stirred by reports from the season’s first contemporary art sales in New York where some artists prices were said to have fallen by 90 percent in a "slumping market", according to the magazine, Art News. But that story was very selective, picking out less than a handful of artists whose prices had been previously artificially hyped. A more rounded view might point to last June’s sales where, while sales totals were down, the percentage of unsold lots was a trim 10 per cent or less.

Peter Doig, Grasshopper, 1990Credit:
Sotheby's

The decline, in other words, is one of supply rather than of demand or values. In Sotheby’s Frieze week sales, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Hannibal, which cost $79,500 in 1993, is now estimated at £3.5 million ($4.6 million). Peter Doig’s Grasshopper, which was bought by Charles Saatchi in 2003 for what seemed an excessive £229,000, is now estimated to fetch at least £2.8 million.

The problem for the auctioneers is that some sellers are nervous about the market and holding back, which reduces sale totals. The immediate effects of this has been both a reduction in staffing levels, and in the provision of financial guarantees which auctioneers arrange to encourage sellers. Next month, the level of guarantees is minimal - maybe two or three at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and only five at Phillips, which tends to be top heavy with guarantees in its efforts to persuade sellers to work with them rather than the big two. Here the biggest guarantee is for Warhol’s 20 Pink Maos (£4-£6 million). The Warhol market, seen as a barometer of the whole market, has been quiet this year so far, so this sale is being seen as a tester before the big New York sales in November.

Gerald Laing, Beach Wear, 1964Credit:
Christies

The mood of caution has not, however, prevented the auctioneers from placing bullish estimates on some lots. Christie’s, for instance, has placed the highest estimate yet for a painting by young Romanian star, Adrian Ghenie, of £1-1.5 million. When Ghenie’s paintings were first shown in London five years ago, they could be bought for £10,000 or £20,000. Christie’s is also looking for an auction record for the British pop artist, Gerald Laing, with a 1964 painting, Beach Ware, of a girl in a bikini. According to Christie’s, Laing "arguably" predated Roy Lichtenstein in his use of the Ben Day dot technique - a big claim that puts the English artist ahead of the game. Prices for Laing’s 1960s paintings have shot up since he died in 2011. Last year, a 1965 painting of another bikini clad girl, Commemoration, sold for a record £1.2 million against a £450,000 pounds estimate, and Beach Ware carries an even higher estimate of £1-1.5 million.

Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait, 2000Credit:
Christies

An interesting aspect of the Christie’s sales is a focus on new British art of the recession hit early 1990s, reflecting a feature of the Frieze Art fair which is doing a similar thing. Christie’s turns a spotlight on the Cranford Collection, a private collection backed by property magnate Freddy Salem and his wife, Muriel, which began in the late 1990s. Here we have works by Glenn Brown and Damien Hirst in the £250,000 range in the evening sale, but in a separate online auction from the Cranford Collection, called Absobloodylutely!, there are much more affordable works by Sarah Lucas, Gillian Wearing and Mark Wallinger. A market stall by Michael Landy from his landmark 1990 installation, Market, is just £1,000.

This is not much for a piece of recent art history that is feted not only in the Frieze exhibition, but in the fair’s talks programme. Described by the future head of collections at Tate, Gregor Muir, as a period of "major transformation" in the way the "DIY generation", as he calls them, expanded the audience for art, the 1990s represents a period of great authenticity, before the art market became overheated with its non-stop global circus of art fairs and biennales. Just right, then, for a moment when the circus is taking a bit of a breather.